🎧
Fiction
Project Hail Mary
6 reviews
View →
Narration ★5
Affiliate link — we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
When a Kristin Hannah novel meets Julia Whelan behind the microphone, you have a pairing of one of the most emotionally powerful storytellers in popular fiction with arguably the most acclaimed audiobook narrator working today. The Four Winds, Hannah's Depression-era epic, is a hard, sweeping, often devastating listen, and Whelan's performance is the reason it lands with the force it does.
Texas, 1934. The Great Depression has collided with the Dust Bowl, and Elsa Martinelli, a woman who spent her early life feeling unwanted and unloved, has finally found belonging on her in-laws' farm, just as the land itself begins to die. As the dust storms destroy everything, Elsa must choose between fighting for the home she has come to love and joining the desperate migration west to California, where the "Okies" discover that the promised land has no use for them. It is a story of a mother's fierce love, of labor and dignity and survival, and it does not flinch from the era's brutality. Comparisons to The Grapes of Wrath are inevitable and, for once, not unearned.
Whelan is a former actress and an accomplished novelist in her own right, and she is widely considered one of the very best narrators in the business, our review of Educated already sang her praises. Here she gives Elsa a quiet, growing strength that mirrors the character's arc, and she handles the novel's many emotional peaks without ever tipping into melodrama, a real risk with material this heavy. Her pacing through the dust-storm set pieces is masterful, and her restraint in the most devastating moments makes them hit harder. If you have heard her work before, you know what you are getting; if you have not, this is a superb introduction to why she has the reputation she does.
This is an emotionally punishing book, poverty, loss, hunger, and death are constant, and it earns its tears rather than manufacturing them, but sensitive listeners should know what they are in for. It is not a comfort read. And Hannah's style is unabashedly sentimental in places; readers who prefer understatement may find the emotional register high. But for those who want a sweeping, immersive, good-cry historical epic, few recent novels deliver more, and few narrators could deliver it better.
Well narrated? Superbly, Whelan is at the top of the profession, and this is a showcase for why. A devastating, immersive historical epic that uses one of the format's finest narrators to full effect. Bring tissues.
Educated, another Julia Whelan masterclass, or Where the Crawdads Sing for another atmospheric, emotionally sweeping listen with a strong female lead.
Julia Whelan narrates the Macmillan Audio edition. Widely regarded as one of the best narrators working today, she brings the same acclaimed control to this that made her narration of Educated so celebrated.
Yes, it is one of the more emotionally punishing novels we cover, dealing with poverty, loss, and survival during the Depression and Dust Bowl. It earns its emotion rather than manufacturing it, but it is not a comfort listen. Sensitive listeners should be prepared.
If you want a sweeping, immersive historical epic and do not mind an emotionally heavy story, very much so, and Whelan's narration elevates it further. Listeners who prefer understated fiction may find Hannah's style sentimental in places.
About 15 hours 2 minutes, a substantial listen, but Whelan's pacing and the story's momentum make it move faster than the runtime suggests.
You can hear The Four Winds free with an Audible trial. (Affiliate link, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.)
No approved reviews yet. Be the first to write one.
